Apple's iPad Mini Shipments May Hit 26 Million This Holiday Season In Fourth Quarter

Apple's latest tablets, the iPad Mini and iPad 4 will see a spike in sales come this festive season, according to experts. The new hardware is set to ship near to 26 million units.

CNET.com suggests that the new tablets will do especially well in the fourth quarter. Finvista Advisor's Sameer Singh tips both products to bring about high numbers this holiday season.

The iPad 4 hasn't been selling the way the manufacture would have liked with the iPad Mini stealing the spotlight from the more larger device. Singh even went as far to say that if the iPad Mini were not around the iPad 4 would have probably reached the 22.7 million mark. But despite the lower-than-expected sales performance of the fourth generation product, it's still one of the better tablets on the market in comparison to the Nexus 7.

The popularity of the iPad mini has left it in short supply with Apple looking to bring in another party in to aid in the output of the device. The company is now in the "final stages of appointing a third manufacturing partner that will help offset the difficulties currently besieging production of its iPad Mini devices," according to KnowYourMobile.

Apple's move to bring in a third party to help in manufacturing is a quick one. The company involved has not been named, but whoever it is will look to solve some of the problems the Apple is having with the iPad Mini.

The device, according to CNET, is in limited supply and the mini device takes two weeks to ship via Apple's online store in contrast the iPad 4 is already in stock and immediately available.

Singh predicts that the iPad Mini could sell up to six to seven million units this quarter making up a decent portion of the 26 million predicted Apple tablet sales this season with the other iPads picking up the rest of the slack.